One agency breaks from diocese in order to continue adoptions and foster-care placement under civil union law, which prohibits discrimination against same-sex couples.

CHICAGO — Since the 1920s, Catholic Charities of Illinois has contracted with the state to provide foster care and adoption services.

Now, Catholic Charities in the state has shuttered that part of its program after its legal challenge to the state’s new civil union law came to naught.

The law, which took effect on June 1, grants same sex couples “civil union” status and includes them as a protected group under state anti-discrimination statutes. That mean all Illinois foster care and adoption agencies must be willing to place children with same-sex couples, a violation of Catholic policy.

While the new law has forced Catholic Charities agencies affiliated with dioceses in Illinois to leave the foster care/adoption business, one former Church agency — Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois — has been spun off as a new entity, unaffiliated with the Church. With the same staff once employed by the Diocese of Belleville, the newly-named “Christian Social Services of Illinois” will operate independently.

Affiliated with the diocese since 1947, the agency has been a majority Catholic-run institution, serving a minority Catholic population in rural Illinois.

“This is not something that [Bishop Edward Braxton of Belleville] wanted to do or wished to have had happen,” said Gary Huelsmann, the former executive director of Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois and the new head of the Christian Social Services of Illinois. “I’m sick to my stomach about this, but we were caught between a rock and a hard place. The intent of the law should have allowed us to continue to do things as we have done: to serve all people with dignity and respect.”

Before the passage of the new law, same-sex and other non-married couples were referred to non-Catholic agencies.

Huelsmann describes the decision as a “heartrending” but prudent solution for protecting 600 foster-care clients. The agency received $9.5 million in state funds to supervise the care of those children, while the diocese provided just $70,000 in subsidies.

“It was much easier to replace the $70,000 the diocese provided vs. the $9.5 million from the foster-care program alone,” he said. Discontinuing the foster care and adoptive services, he added, would have “been catastrophic for the agency,” making for a “domino effect that would have hurt everyone we serve,” from aiding impoverished elderly folks to helping abused children find good homes.

“Our [nearly 200] employees are tremendously dedicated,” he said. “Why would we want to disrupt everything good they are doing? Why should our clients who have nothing to do with foster care be harmed? We’re trying to do the Christian thing under hard circumstances. There are a million moving parts when it comes to foster care. One piece isn’t connected to the values of the Church, and because of that one itty-bitty part, we’re forced to separate from the diocese. It’s incredibly sad.

Huelsmann advocated for the changed status “because I saw little value in taking such a strong stance that the whole agency would disintegrate,” he said. He added that “some of our employees are not Catholic and most of our clients are not” in an impoverished part of the state where Catholic Charities played a more significant role than any other social-service provider.

Anguishing Search for Options

Bishop Braxton could not give his imprimatur to the change.

In a published interview, Bishop Braxton stressed that “every diocese in Illinois that provided these services looked for solutions and sought to challenge this law.” The legislation was passed last December by the lame-duck, Democrat-controlled state Legislature along a strictly party-line vote, then championed by the governor, Pat Quinn, a Catholic.

“But while the Dioceses of Joliet and Springfield did not depend so heavily on state funds, Belleville is poor,” Bishop Braxton said in the interview, during the general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. “We have a large geographic area with a relatively small population.”

Bishop Braxton expressed anguish as he described the search for options. He noted that the agency’s staff is primarily Catholic and did not want to separate from the diocese, but they feared that the state would be unable to manage the sudden increase in foster-care cases.

“The state programs are not as strong as our program,” he said, acknowledging that the staff was also concerned about holding onto their jobs.

When the agency staff determined that the only way to maintain their social services was to separate from the diocese and forfeit its Catholic title, they sought his approval. “But I told them that while I understood their problem, I could not approve or have anything to do with this new entity. They wanted to call it ‘Christian,’ but I told them that they would have no long-term control over what the agency might become, once it was cut off from the diocese.”

Meanwhile, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., expressed hope that good may come out of bad political and judicial rulings.

“The silver lining of this decision is that our Catholic Charities going forward will be able to focus on being more Catholic and more charitable,” he told Catholic News Agency, “while less dependent on government funding and less encumbered by intrusive state policies.”

Look at the Agenda

The Chicago-based Thomas More Society represented the Catholic Charities affiliates of three Illinois dioceses, charging that the new civil union law should exempt Catholic Charities’ foster care and adoptive services from accommodating immoral situations, heterosexual as well as homosexual. Their case was just rendered moot, however, because “the clock ran out on our case” contesting state Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s position that Catholic Charities would have to service civil union couples, said Peter Breen, the Thomas More Society’s executive director. “We never had a court rule that no religious-freedom protections were afforded in the civil union law, despite assurances to the contrary before the law was passed. The court merely held that the executive branch could run roughshod over such protections, if they even existed.”

Breen said the bishops’ “brave stand” against the state of Illinois changed public perception and opinion of the civil union law: that it was not a matter of justice, but legislation agenda-driven by the homosexual lobby. And although he is unsure how the case might continue in Illinois — it is almost a moot point where Catholic Charities is concerned, he said, because the cases have been given to other agencies and employees laid off — he is hopeful that making a stand in Illinois will educate others.

“Even people in favor of civil unions are saying this isn’t what they wanted to happen,” he said. “I hope this causes people to look again at the agenda of those pressing for same-sex ‘marriages’ and civil unions and hopefully cause people in other states considering such legislation to do the same. The Thomas More Society stands ready to provide help in other states considering such laws, and we’ll educate legislators about the alleged religious protections that may not be worth the paper they’re written upon.”

Comments

“It’s so nice to know that one can’t use government money to discriminate against someone.”

Another way to say the same thing is that our government now requires agencies to place vulnerable children into home environments imbued with the adults’ addiction to the sin of sodomy as a way of life.

Remember that in the city of Sodom, the men lusted shamefully after other men, and in Gomorrah, the women consorted intimately with other women. By disobeying God in this way, the men and women of Sodom and Gomorrah lowered themseves to the level of the beasts of the field. Even lower than the beasts, in fact, since the beasts act according to their nature. But when men and women behave in this way, they pervert nature.

When men and women who give themselves over to perverted acts, they consort with the demons.

Can’t you get the whiff of brimstone and the sulphur that emanates from the very mention of sex between two men or between two women? Persons who act in this way do so at the suggestion of the Devil, and place themselves very far along the road to Hell itself.

Folks, let us not be distracted by the suave and slippery excuses such as the use of terms, such as “discrimination.” No matter how they spin it; the road to Hell is no place for children.

Posted by Joseph R Yungk on Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 10:38 PM (EST):

It’s so nice to know that one can’t use government money to discriminate against someone.

Posted by Tom R on Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 6:47 PM (EST):

This is good for everyone involved, folks. First of all, $70K vs $9.5M is a no-brainer for those that don’t believe. For those that do, the Church keeps its good name, with the added benefit of severing itself from Caesar’s funds. No good can come from accepting state funds in this secular climate. I’m glad the Church is done with this version of a Faustian bargain.

Posted by Joseph R Yungk on Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 6:21 PM (EST):

“The sign,“Catholics need not apply,unlless your an Obamamite”, now appeares in many U.S. government offices.This is similar to the system in Communist China which also has 2 Catholic Churches.”

Please state what offices have the signs.

“A union of same-gender people does not provide the child, who is already disadvantaged, an idea home.”

The government does not consider there to be legitimacy to this and it only extends from your religion not fact. Therefor it’s a prejudicial policy that the state does not have to allow when they are paying for services.

It has become more and more obvious that those of the Dark Side within our federal and state governments have turned the corner in their efforts to force everyone into the harness of the Evil One . . . in the form of a political correctness that spits upon God’s Law.

The Catholic Church must have been, and still is (God willing!) a particularly tough nut to crack. But crack her they are still trying to do, and won’t let up, with all the ferocity of Hell itself.

The well-intentioned but misguided folk of “Christian Social Services” have been unfortunate enough to succumb to the demands of the bad guys, leading ultimately to their spiritual harm, as well as that of the innocent children who will be harmed as this turn of events plays out to its unfortunate conclusion.

If only we could drop leaflets from an airplane over the roof and parking lot of “Christian Social Services” which reads, “Children deserve from Christians a home with a mother and a father to love them . . . and nothing less!”

Anyway, this is war, I think, folks.

Posted by Mercedes Mont on Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 8:55 AM (EST):

Thank you, Bishop Braxton, for your fidelity to Christ who says to you and to each of us, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The entire Church needs this kind of fidelity to Jesus alone.

Posted by Mal on Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 7:41 AM (EST):

A child that is given up for adoption is already disadvantaged and so should be placed in the best well-balanced home available - not one that has two of the same gender.

Posted by Mal on Thursday, Nov 17, 2011 4:07 AM (EST):

A union of same-gender people does not provide the child, who is already disadvantaged, an idea home.

Posted by Jim McGovern on Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 11:11 PM (EST):

Clearly the Church in the United States is divided into two congregations:
one puts Caesar first(Obamamites)and the other puts Jesus Christ first(Uderground Catholics).The sign,“Catholics need not apply,unlless your an Obamamite”, now appeares in many U.S. government offices.This is similar to the system in Communist China which also has 2 Catholic Churches.

Posted by Mojoron on Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 9:10 PM (EST):

What an ethical dilemma. Certainly you don’t want to place the already placed children in jeopardy, but you certainly can’t allow new children to be placed in dysfunctional situations either. I’m glad I don’t get paid the big bucks to figure this out.

Posted by Pam on Wednesday, Nov 16, 2011 6:31 PM (EST):

Federal law and protections trump state law. Is the Thomas More center taking this to the next level? This is unacceptable, Sounds like the Church is not putting up much of a fight, just trying to look like they are.

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